The Internet, particularly the world-wide-web (WWW), provides a plethora of information sources, each of which offers useful information, goods and services, typically in the form of hyper-text mark-up language (HTML) pages (web pages), to users of the vast computer network. As it is well known, typically, a user utilizes a web browser, e.g., the NAVIGATOR® from the Netscape Communications Corporation of Mountain View, Calif., USA, or the INTERNET EXPLORER® from the Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash., USA, installed on his/her computer to access a desired web page.
In order to access a particular web page, the user web browser must know the address of the desired destination web site within the network, i.e., the Internet. In particular, in the case of the WWW, the addresses are referred to as the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. An IP address has a numeric format, e.g., 123.456.78.9. Each server hosting a website in the WWW is given a unique IP address.
However, as the number of web pages in the WWW (already in the hundreds of billions) rapidly increases, a more intuitive addressing convention that uses alpha-numeric aliases that can be more easily remembered is devised. An address according to the newly devised addressing system is commonly referred to as an Universal Resource Locator (URL), which typically has a syntax, “protocol://www.domain-name.domain”. The protocol may be, e.g., hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) for WWW. The domain specifies which of the high-level division of the entire Internet, the addressee belongs to, and can be, for example, “com”, “org”, “net” or the like (domains in countries other than the United States may include the country indicator, e.g., co.uk, which indicates a commercial domain in the United Kingdom). The domain-name and the domain fields together serve as the alias for the actual IP address. The domain-name may be arranged as a plurality of sub names, e.g., “subname 1.subname 2 . . . subname n.” For example, an URL, http://www.xyz.com specifies a server in the world-wide-web hosting a web site for the xyz company.
A special server, called a domain name server (DNS), placed in the Internet maintains a global directory that maps domain names, e.g., the “xyz.com”, to the corresponding actual IP addresses, e.g., 123.456.78.9, of the server hosting the web site for the xyz company. The DNS server may be more than one physically separate computers, and may be organized in a hierarchical manner. When a user enters an URL in the web browser installed on the user computer, the web browser inquires the DNS server for the IP address associated with the particular URL. Once, the web browser obtains the IP address from the DNS server, a connection is established between the user web browser and the server application at that IP address.
There is a non-ambiguous one-to-one correspondence between each URL and its associated IP address. In order to ensure the integrity of the unique correspondence between an URL and the associated IP address, it must be ensured that no two different servers, having different IP address from each other, share the same URL. To that end, there is a registration system in place to ensure only one registrant is assigned a particular “domain name”. Presently, the authority for the registration system is with a non-profit organization, called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Also at the present time, only one registrar for each of the domains are allowed to accept registration of domain names. For example, in the case of the “.com”, “org” and the “.net” domains, the Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI), of Herndon, Va., USA, is the only authorized registrar for domain names. Once, a registrant registers a domain name with an authorized registrar, e.g., registering a “.com” domain name with NSI, no other entity may register the same domain name. Once a domain name is registered, the DNS directory is updated with a new entry assigning the newly registered domain name to the registrant's web hosting server IP address.
While the URL system and domain name registration system have greatly improved the convenience of addressing convention over the numerical IP address system, the current system is very inconvenient particularly for users of the Internet in non-English speaking countries. Because, heretofore, each character of all domain names were required to be in the form of alphanumeric character, (e.g., a character from A–Z, a number from 0–9, or perhaps a hyphen “-”), users of non-English speaking countries were forced to attempt to spell their native language words using English alpha-numeric characters. Unfortunately, because the English alphabet is inadequate in representing each and every possible phonetic sound of every language, a foreign language (a non-English native language) word may be spelled several different ways using English alphabets, often times, none of which can truly represent the native pronunciation of the word. For example, a Korean speaking Internet user may try to phonetically spell the Korean word, “”, which is roughly equivalent to “ABC” in English, as, inter alia, “Kanada”, “Ganada” or even “Ghanahdah” (many other spelling may be possible).
The above multiple spelling possibility problem creates numerous sources of confusions, frustrations and inconveniences when exchanging URL information between users of the WWW in those non-English speaking countries. Frequently, when providing an URL information, rather than simply uttering the whole word, the entire domain name must be spelled out one character at a time, making it extremely inconvenient to those not well versed in English. Moreover, businesses in those non-English speaking countries, even when a suitable native word that perfectly describes the services offered by a particular business, opt not to use the word as the domain name for the business because of the likeliness of confusion with respect to the English alpha-numeric spelling of the word.
Furthermore, the requirement that a non-English speaking WWW user must remember an English word in-and-of-itself is an inconvenience that makes the current domain name system less desirable.
There is thus a need for a method of and system for registration and usage of native language domain names, which may comprise one or more non-English alpha-numeric characters.